


The Continuing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by canistakahari



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), The Sandman
Genre: Cocaine, Crossover, Dreams, Dreamwalking, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canistakahari/pseuds/canistakahari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dream is waiting in an alcove, holding a thick volume with thin, white hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Continuing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

It’s probably the Lord Shaper’s sister that Holmes should actually be visiting, considering the quantity of cocaine he’s ingested in the last seventeen hours, but it’s not actually her realm he ends up in; he’d immediately recognize the ever-changing kinetic swirls of abstract colour that define little Delirium’s domain, because he comes often, when he needs to think.   
  
However, the twisting castle surrounding him is less familiar, yet at the same time  _more_  familiar, than his own skin. He's certain he’s been here before, maybe countless times, because there’s a tickle at the edge of his mind, insisting with gentle, ghostly fingers, that this is like coming home. Without very much fuss at all, as if something is drawing him forward through time as inexorably as the sun rises and sets, Holmes goes to the library.   
  
The impossibly tall, impossibly thin man with the enormous glasses only glances at him, briefly considering, before Holmes continues past him, trailing tobacco-stained fingers along the delicate spines of all the books that have ever been dreamt.   
  
Dream is waiting in an alcove, holding a thick volume with thin, white hands. He turns to Holmes as he arrives, blinking eyes that Holmes cannot fathom, stars and galaxies and suns burning in and out and looping together in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.   
  
“What do you have there, old boy?” asks Holmes. Dream extends the book toward him, and he accepts it, not surprised to see the title is  _The Continuing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_.   
  
“Several recent chapters are devoted to the consumption of opiates and other narcotics,” says Dream, and he very rarely expresses tonality of any kind beyond mild stuffiness and occasional annoyance, but Holmes is positive he can detect a scrap of disapproval lingering there. “Delirium is fond of you, though.”  
  
“And I am quite fond of her in return,” Holmes replies, with a smirk. “She’s excellent company.”  
  
Dream cocks his head, and says, eventually, “Yes. I suppose so.” He turns to walk between the shelves of quietly dreaming books, and Holmes joins him.   
  
“I don’t suppose you can –”  
  
“No,” says Dream, shortly.   
  
“Not even if I assure you that –”  
  
“ _No_ ,” repeats Dream, stopping to look down at Holmes. He's not as tall as the librarian, but he still towers over Holmes.   
  
“I cannot be faulted for asking – again. But I never  _remember_ ,” protests Holmes, patting his pockets for his pipe. “This place, my lord Morpheus, this place is something to which I would dearly love to devote some extended periods of study, and if you would but grant me a little time here –”  
  
Dream’s expression is flat, and Holmes cuts himself off quickly.   
  
“It’s simply a gross injustice, allowing creatures to dream such wonders, and then snatching them all away in that dizzy moment just before waking,” he continues after a short, uncomfortable staring contest.   
  
“Perhaps,” says Dream, and he turns a corner and disappears from sight. “But I ask you this, Sherlock Holmes – if you learned, and remembered, why would you trouble yourself with ever returning at all?”  
  
When Holmes turns the same corner, the next corridor is empty. He sighs, and looks down at the book in his hands. The title now reads  _The Dreaming: Everything You Ever Needed to Know._  
  
“Cocktease,” snaps Holmes.   
  
If Dream ever laughed, Holmes might swear he could hear him doing so now, very faintly.


End file.
